He Can't Swim Or Can He?
by Rasi10
Summary: Andrew Spruce, a well known swimmer, who had won from the time he started competing in competitions. But then he had suddenly disappeared without any cause known. Years later, the Avengers clean up the Stark Mansion and find out something that is a surprise to everyone. What is it? What happened to Andrew Spruce? Find out in the story. I do not own any characters, Marvel does.


****A/N: If you haven't guessed it already, then well let me say that this a story where Tony is an amazing swimmer who stopped swimming due to difficulties. On with the story. This takes place before Iron Man 3 by the way.****

It all started one hot summer afternoon when Tony decided that it was time to clean the long abandoned Stark Mansion and his house at Malibu. The Avengers (minus Thor who was at Asgard) had obviously wanted to help Tony out in the cleaning as they knew how much of a work it can be.

Their first destination was the Malibu but there was not much to be cleared out there as someone (read Pepper) constantly clears away anything unwanted immediately and after a day's rest and another day at the beach (Tony safely stayed away from the water even though he had an urge to dive in, afraid of drowning)

And then, his next destination was the mansion, a place he could never call a home due to the bad memories of the place and it basically never felt like a home, being away for a long time and his dad's behaviour never helped.

The group of six (Rhodey had joined in at some time in Malibu) split up and each of them cleared a room. Tony and Rhodey had opted for Jarvis' room and the study, Steve opted Howard's room while Natasha took up Maria's. Which left Bruce and Clint with Tony's room.

Everyone started packing and boxing everything they found, leaving it to Tony to decide whether it had to be thrown or not. Everyone, other than Tony, Rhodey, Bruce and Clint had completed cleaning so the other two headed up to check upon the duo cleaning up Tony's room as they knew it would take the other 2 sometime to finish going through two rooms.

When they reached the destination, they had to witness Bruce and Clint going through a box with awe and confusion on their faces.

"What is going on in here?" Steve asked. "Look at what we found in this box Steve!" Clint exclaimed, pointing at the things that vaguely looked like medals certificates. "It is addressed to some Andrew Spruce. What is big about it?" Steve asked, confused.

"It is big Steve. Remember the recent mission that Fury told us about, something about a swimmer being missing for years and wanted us to track where he is but Tony refused to do it? This is that very guy." Natasha said.

"But why is some random swimmer's certificates and medals with Tony?" Bruce asked. "I don't know, unless Tony is Andrew Spruce, which is impossible as he can't swim as he admitted himself, I don't know." Natasha said.

 _Meanwhile with Rhodey and Tony_

"You do realise that if you are leaving Clint and Bruce to clean your room, they may chance upon the certificates right?" Rhodey asked. "I know Rhodey and I planned all this as I think it is time that the mystery is solved as SHIELD is starting to involve us in his case." Tony said.

"So... how are you going to reveal it then Spruce?" Rhodey asked, referring Tony with is identity that he hasn't used for decades. "I guess you are about to find out" Tony replied.

No one would ever realise at first glance that Tony was a swimmer as he was a genius who built weapons and later on other things and he also never bothered to correct them as he was good at hiding things and wanted people to believe whatever they wanted. Very few people knew about this passion.

The first one to find out this passion was Maria. He had been 5 years old at that time and was practicing swimming at the pool, carefree of the world at that time and hadn't noticed her coming, searching for him. It was then Maria knew that Tony had an affinity to swimming and she encouraged him, seeing as he was a natural.

You see, when Tony had been young, he had loved building things and all and was a genius but his first preference had always been swimming back then but the Howard and Jarvis had accidentally chanced upon him two years later and Howard was not happy at all.

There had been a shouting match between Maria and Howard and yet, Tony refused to let it go and practised. He practised whenever Howard was sleeping/drunk/at work, which was a lot. He made himself a false name and Jarvis and Maria helped him hide his identity so that none of them find out about Tony Stark was participating in sports, especially Howard. And thus, Andrew Spruce was born.

Disguising himself while swimming was tough but he had managed it with some waterproof makeup and a face mask ** **(Remember that one which Natasha had in Winter Soldier? Imagine that being waterproof, that's all.)**** and was successful.

Howard wanted Tony to take over the weapons company instead of becoming a swimmer, even though Tony had no interest in controlling a company, how much ever he had interest in making stuff. His heart was always in swimming.

By the time Howard forced him to go to MIT, he was already famous as both Tony Stark and Andrew Spruce for _stark_ opposite reasons. Andrew for his efficiency in swimming and especially his special trick which consisted of altering between underwater backflips, butterfly strokes and backstrokes together which no one has managed to do till date. Tony on the other hand was famous because he was the heir of a famous company and had a equally famous dad.

Even in MIT, he continued his dual identity, even though Rhodey found out about it as he was his roommate and a close friend. When in any swimming activity, he used to be like an animal, he would be too enthusiastic and would often pass out of exhaustion due to exerting himself too much, which was how Rhodey found out about it and has always supported him ever since.

Though everything changed when his parents died when he was 18. Jarvis and passed away a year ago and he was about to take over Stark Industries. So he made sure that he would do whatever he could before he took over the company when he was 21.

So people saw the most of Andrew in those 3 years than ever before. And those were the best years for Tony honestly. He was doing something he wanted to do, even had a girlfriend for a while, someone he was dating since MIT but they broke up on good terms due to some issues.

And then he took over the company and often never had time to compete unless he gives an excuse like taking off for a few days, trying to throw Obadiah off his back in those times, booking two tickets at the same time so that there would be no suspicion.

But he did swim back at Malibu in his private pool or the beach, often competing with Rhodey whenever he came over. But all that changed when Pepper came into the picture. He couldn't swim when she was around, even after she started trusting her as he never had time and had an image to live up to.

He once accidentally blurted out that he can't know to swim when Pepper had been nagging him to go for a swim in the sea when he was in a bad mood. Due to that, he had to conceal his affinity to swimming from then on to avoid any suspicion from Pepper.

Everything changed with Afghanistan though. He didn't know hat his lie to Pepper might come true, be it temporary or permanent. The waterboarding had done a toll on him and he couldn't exactly go out naked with a nightlamp on his chest as everyone knew that Ironman had one and could link it easily.

It was not exactly something that one has to be afraid about but at the same time, keeping it a secret for so long, he couldn't break it out all of a sudden as it might even have a fallout and with the market crashing, it wasn't something he wanted to do. He did try to swim once on Pepper's insistence after but immediately regretted it as it brought about a panic attack.

It really started to annoy Tony about the irony that he wasn't bale to do something he loved due to the other thing he loved to do. Swimming had relaxed him before and now it brings him panic. He did try out in his private pool after making the reactor waterproof but the panic was great and he gave it a break to give some time to settle it.

He was actually surprised that Natasha, who revealed herself to be a spy hadn't noticed that he was a swimmer, like even though he didn't swim, he did have that physique you know.

It was only after the Chitauri fiasco that he again got courage to face the waters again as after what he had faced, that fear was small compared to going to space and using that as his motivation, he started to swim again, starting as a beginner and slowly worked on to become his old self.

He then invited the Avengers to house with him and they readily agreed to it. It was all egos clashing initially but it improved and soon they became one big happy family, movie nights, eating together and all.

Rhodey had again chanced upon him swimming to exhaustion but was ecstatic that Tony had taken up to swimming again after he came to know about the water boarding. They almost had a close call of exposing his secret identity to the team when the team was called on to investigate the case of Andrew Spruce but Tony kept quiet about it and let it slide as he had no proof to show them that he was Spruce. The only way was to bring them to the mansion and apparently it had worked as planned.

"What is going on here?" Tony asked as he entered his old room to find the rest of the Avengers sitting around and seeing his certificates. "I could ask you the same Tony. Why are Andrew Spruce's certificates in your room?" Natasha asked and Tony looked around to see curious faces looking up at him.

Tony let out a breath and looked at Rhodey, who just nodded at him. "I think you might've found some type of a face mask or something in my mother's room Natasha." Tony said and she nodded, pulling it out.

"Good, give it to me. It is a special mask I had invented. It will be clear when you it." Tony said and stretched out his hand and Natasha silently passed it on, slightly confused. "Are you going to wear that Tony?" Clint asked. "No, Bruce is going to wear it." Tony said with a smirk.

"Why me?" Bruce asked. "It will only fit you or me and I can't check if it works still if I am wearing it you know?" Tony asked and went to Bruce and gently put on the mask before touching some kind of a button on the side before standing away and muttered "I never expected it to work" before turning to the others.

"Before you are suspicious and all, this mask has only one setting as I hadn't needed any other at that time and you cannot imitate anyone else other than the one programmed in it. I want you to meet..."

"Andrew Spruce's face." Rhodey finished as he turned over Bruce and at the same time Tony projected a picture of Antonio Spruce. Everyone were shocked at the similarity and were open mouthed. "What is happening guys?" Bruce asked nervously.

"Nothing much other than the fact that now you are having the face of Spruce Bruce." Rhodey said with a chuckle. Steve, being the one who first regained his composure asked slowly "So... you mean to say that... you are Andrew Spruce? But you said you can't swim?"

Clint, who got over his shock started fanboying. "Ohmigod!YouareTheAndrewSpruce!Iamabigfanofyours!" he shouted out excitedly, causing Natasha to elbow him.

"Why didn't you tell us before Stark? First of all, how did I not know this?" she asked. "First to Steve, I am Spruce and Nat, you do know that I hide a lot of things Nat, nothing new. And I didn't say it before because I had no evidence if I did reveal it and was out of commission for a while so technically I couldn't swim then." Tony said.

"Why did you stop swimming?" Bruce asked. "Because of Afghanistan and being a CEO of a company. You can never get much free time to do swimming. And then the arc came in and it would be obvious if I went swimming with the arc and certainly waterboarding didn't help here." Tony said.

"And how can I be sure you are him?" Natasha asked, ever the spy. Tony sighs and then remembers suddenly. "Natasha, did you find any tapes in my mom's room? She always took tapes of me while Howard never liked me swimming." Tony said and when she nodded, he immediately went to bring the box of tapes.

As Tony said, the box was filled with a lot of tapes, most of them consisted of either Tony swimming or putting on his make up with Maria's commentary in the background. Pretty soon, everyone were laughing at Tony's antics and cheering at his victory.

After everything was over, Rhodey suddenly had a thought. "Do you think now you can do charity funds holding swimming races and at the same time reveal that you were Andrew Spruce?" he asked. "Actually, that seems like a good idea. I think you can arrange an open swimming competition and do a fund raiser to donate you know?" Steve asked.

Tony seemed to consider this and had this glint in his eye that promised a whole lot of amusement and shock for everyone.

And a few days later, that is exactly what happened. Tony announced an open swimming contest and all the Avengers participated in it. The highlight of that event was Tony pulling off Andrew's signature move without any effort and admitting that he was Andrew Spruce, solving the mystery.

And then on, Tony's life was very happy. He got to participate in competitions again and he even planned on funding young swimmers for learning and held annual swim meets and at times taught young swimmers himself if he had time. So... yeah, being able to be Ironman, build things and swimming, all the three together made Tony a very happy person.

 ** **A/N: This was just a random idea and I hope that you liked it! And with this story, I just wanted to inform anyone who have been reading my other books that I will be out of commission for the upcoming two weeks due to exams and will be starting to update after that.****

 ** **I hope you all liked this story though! All comments and criticisms accepted and appreciated a lot. And any suggestions for a short story is also accepted here!****

 ** **Thank you all for reading!****

 ** **Rasi10 signing off****

 ** **Published on 9 December 2018****


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